


paroxysm

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Muteness, One-Sided Attraction, Self-Esteem Issues, male character with she/her pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: Looking.He’s always looking, always watching, eyes trained on her to make sure she’s okay.
Relationships: Aura/Miqo'te, Warrior of Light/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Kudos: 1





	paroxysm

Looking.

He’s always looking, always watching, eyes trained on her to make sure she’s okay. A narrowly hit spell, a blade cutting it a little too close. A crease in her brow, a scowl when someone makes her angry. He sees it all, from his safe distance. 

Most he can cure with his magic, some not. Some he cures with hand signs and gentle strokes through the hair, a warm presence, an evening of lended horn to her ramlings.

Iphi wonders why he’s thinking of that now.

The blankets are still cold, draped over his overheated body. She has fallen asleep next to him, curled up like a Couerl. His eyes follow the lines on her peaceful face, always watching, always far away.

He could reach out, tuck the stray strand of hair back in its place. He doesn’t.

What he does is get up, as carefully as he can. His legs ache and threaten to buckle as he makes his way to the bathroom. The mirror taunts him with marks beginning to bloom on his skin — scratches, _ lovebites _ .

He turns away, goes through the motions of wetting a cloth half-blind and scrubs himself until the sensitive skin around his scales burns. It still doesn’t feel right. He scrubs more, until white has been replaced by dark burgundy, almost friction burns from how long he does it.

How long does he do it for?

There’s no chronometer in the bathroom. Bless the Twelve for that.

He crawls back into bed, sitting on the edge in nothing but a pair of underwear to hide away those red splotches he’d just created. The house is silent. Too big and too silent for someone who bangs their head on the doorframes regularly.

Or maybe he’s just small, with his head hung low and slumped shoulders.

The curtains are closed, always closed when they do this, to hide such a shameful act away, but he knows the moon is high up in the sky. For just a moment he feels the urge to go out, sit on the bench in the yard and let the moonlight wash over him.

Then it’s gone. 

His chest feels eerily empty, like someone has reached through his scales and skin and plucked all his organs out, one by one, stitched him back up, and left him like that. He doesn’t feel the tears coming, only feels his gut clenching before he doubles over, arms wrapped around his midriff as if scared whatever took his heart and lungs will come for his stomach too.

The floorboards blur before him and his blood is loud in his horns. Unable to make a single noise, he stays like that, tears rolling down his cheeks and shoulders shaking as he gasps for breath.

He stays like that for a millennia, years passing by him in a blur of constellations in the dark sky, moon weeping along with him, clouds gathering unseen behind those curtains that isolate him from the rest of the world.

Once, ages and ages ago, when he was naive and big, he’d thought himself strong, able to withstand something like this. Once, he’d _ cherished _ it.

And then his traitorous heart decided it had had enough of being good, and turned selfish, yearning, hoping. Every encounter, every slide of bodies together, every heated kiss in the throes of an orgasm, he’d come to detest.

He hated himself for liking it all and hated it for being all it was. The throes of passion. They are battle partners. She sneaks up on their enemies and gets rid of them quickly and efficiently. Like everything else she does — quick and efficient. He’s there in case something goes horribly bad, a trump card if the battle turns into a long duel, or an ambush, or an overwhelming attack. 

He detests himself for wanting anything more, for wanting the things she whispers to him —  _ whispered to him mere bells ago _ — to mean something. Anything.

His face in the palms of his hands, curled up so far it’s between his legs, he shakes. And then he’s upright with a start, a hand on his shoulder and panic in his bones and he lights up with magic and everything explodes in a blinding blue light and his legs are tripping over themselves as he runs, carpets bunching beneath him, coffee tables meticulously placed toppled over, trinkets and vases laying scattered, the door opening and slamming closed. 

The sky truly is covered in constellations, moon shining bright down on him as he runs, the heart he’d been convinced he was robbed of beating out of his chest.

He trips on one of the Lavender beds’ planters, knees scraping on the stone paving. He stays down, kneeling, and the first thing he becomes aware of is how cold it is.

“Hey…”

He blinks — the cobblestones come into focus a little. Still hazy, like his mind, still far away. 

“Iph,” he hears, from the far end of a tunnel. He’s shaking. “What happened?”

He blinks. The tears are rolling down again, his spine curls. His forehead hits the cobblestone with a dull thud. 

“Shh… that’s okay, come on.” The tunnel is long, the voice distorted. It’s damp like his face. “I’m here, I’m right here, darlin’.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder again, and he’s sure he can only feel it because it becomes the only place on his whole body that’s not cold. Another comes down to his chin, long fingers nudging it up, and he goes lax, lets it move him to its pleasure. He’s faced with a Miqo’te, sitting down in front of him.

He blinks the tears away — tries to, anyhow — but before he can confirm if he’s hallucinating, there’s another hand on his other shoulder and he’s pulled forward, against them. Why does this person have three arms?

No, that’s stupid. Of course they don’t have three arms. The hand that had been on his chin has disappeared. Instead, the two arms they  _ do _ have are wrapped around him. It should be awkward, he’s gangly and all kinds of curled up, but a beat passes with nothing but the suddenly-too-loud crickets around them.

“Iph, can ya tell me what happened?” 

He raises a hand, raises the other one. He tries to speak. His hands are shaking too much. They end up pressed to his chest, over where his heart still beats like it’s doing its best to keep him alive. Where did it come from, wasn’t it lost?

“It’s okay, take ya time. I’m right here.”

Why is the voice soft? It still feels like they’re far away, whispering from the far end of the tunnel he's convinced himself has to exist, but he can hear it clear as the day. Or night, he supposes.

So he tries again, raises his hands, uncurls his fingers.  _ Do _ .  _ Why _ .  _ Please. Do. _ No word feels quite right on his fingers, and he starts shaking his head, waving them all away as soon as he signs them.

One of the hands wrapped around his back moves up, fingers card through his hair. He’d never put it back in its braid, did he? It keeps going, wary of any tangles, never pulling, and for some reason, he starts feeling a little more like he’s back in his body. Where had he been so far?

‘ _ Do you care about me? _ ’ is what he signs, though he still shakes his head. He doesn’t dismiss the words this time, though.

“Of course I do,” is whispered next to his horn. He feels a chin rest on his shoulder, and he has to drop them to make it more comfortable. An instinct. “I care about you more than anyone.”

He shakes, the shoulders he’d just worked so hard to relax quivering again, but the chin doesn’t leave, the hands don’t leave. He’s held.

‘ _ Can you repeat it? _ ’ 

“‘s many times as it takes. Ya’re the most important th— person to me. I promise. I’ve never cared about someone as much as I do about you.”

Iphi listens, horns tingling as they try to pick out the whispers from a tunnel, and he cries.

Maybe that’s all he’d get. 

And maybe that’s enough for now. 


End file.
